7 ms·

Trump Administration Hardens Its Attack on Climate Science

96 points by whack 7y ago

microcolonel 7y ago
This is an opinion piece with a red hot flamebait title and a buried lede. Surely there's a better way to start this conversation on HN.
- mal10c 7y ago
  Agreed!
- babygoat 7y ago
  There are an awful lot of hard facts presented. What parts specifically do you take issue with?
  - microcolonel 7y ago
    The first six paragraphs of personal gripes, opinions, and hyperbole, for a start. If the story started and ended with hard facts, interpretation, and interview, it would be less painful to read and more effective in conveying the point. The way it's written, I'd be surprised if a healthy 20% of readers would reach the actual news: that the horizon for the government's first-party predictions of climate change is being shortened to about twenty years rather than about eighty. That would be something specific that you could make up your own mind about, instead of adopting the tedious framing, and something you could take up with your representatives and your community.
- RobertRoberts 7y ago
  Anyone who is voting down this comment should checkout the article. Any journalist that calls the President of the US "Mr." instead of "President" is trying to belittle them. If they writer showed respect and stuck to facts instead of baiting, then it would be more impactful to thoughtful and intelligent people. Since that is not how it is written, it comes across as an appeal to emotion.
  - mattnewton 7y ago
    This is just common NYT style. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/08/reader-center/why-does-nyt-call-president-mr-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/08/reader-center/why-does-ny... It’s common elsewhere too. Here is a cbs news article talking about the style (using Mr. Obama in this case). https://www.cbsnews.com/news/no-disrespect-in-calling-the-president-mister/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/no-disrespect-in-calling-the-pr... Discrediting the article’s tone is easier than attacking its conclusions, but that’s not how we have a productive discussion, and I hope we can agree it’s not useful.
    - RobertRoberts 7y ago
      If my point was to discredit it's conclusions, I would have. I pointed out that the article was appealing to baser instincts by it's writing methods. Everyone who think's I support Trump (I don't) or think climate change is hoax (I don't) assumed this. Nothing in my comment indicates this. Maybe people downvote based on emotions as well?
  - foldr 7y ago
    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/08/reader-center/why-does-nyt-call-president-mr-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/08/reader-center/why-does-ny...
  - danans 7y ago
    The Nytimes refers to nearly all people using personal, not professional, titles when their professional title is obvious from context or already previously stated in the article.
  - microcolonel 7y ago
    The "Mr." stuff is just a quirk of the NY Times' opinionated editorial style; they also forego the Oxford comma despite that being a perpetual source of confusion.
  - mikeash 7y ago
    Brought to you by the “fuck your feelings” crowd. “Political correctness is out of control” but how dare you follow your standard and refer to our God Emperor as a mere “Mr”!
- Retra 7y ago
  But what conversation is your comment meant to start?
cowwithbeef 7y ago
It would be a much more accurate article if instead of "climate science" it said "climate change prediction and mitigation."
jedberg 7y ago
The biggest issue we're going to have is that at some point someone else will be in charge, and the science will resume, but there will be a big hole in the data, because this current administration is no longer funding the collection of critical data for climate models. We won't even really feel the effects of this for probably a decade or more, when the models finally see the effects of the lack of data.
- SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
  Who is not collecting data?
  - jedberg 7y ago
    Budgets are being slashed across the admin, but NOAA is prime example. They've said multiple times they can no longer meet all of their priorities because of the lack of budget. It came to head during the government shutdown, when they simply stopped doing any work for a month.
  - evo_9 7y ago
    Godless untrustworthy liberals, duh.
    - steve76 7y ago
      More like people in charge have been coming after me my whole life, and now they are up to this. It's a mute issue until China and India do something about it. They don't, not because of centuries of social injustice. More like the corrupt reality of this second. The gasoline stops coming from the naive leaders, the naive leaders go bye bye. Funny how the talk of global warming goes away when we talk about dumping trillions of QE in the wallets of people in charge. There are ways to get conservatives aboard. Naval treaties, leadership, mutual realignment. They're not done because this isn't about solving problems. I see it as a way to explain why all this money is going to research, without alarming people of something good on the horizon, which in many ways is more destructive than ominous threat.
- 7y ago
yathern 7y ago
This is mostly unrelated to the point of the article, but I noticed that Trump in this article is repeatedly referred to as "Mr. Trump". Only once as "President Trump." This seems a little bit out of the ordinary to me. I can't recall Obama ever being called "Mr. Obama". This isn't a criticism at all - but simply piqued my curiosity. Is there a reason for this? My only assumption is it's meant to be a minor indicator of the author's sentiment regarding Trump. Or is it just common NY Times style? EDIT: It appears it's simply a well document common style decision. I should have looked it up before posting!
- kej 7y ago
  Searches for "Mr. Obama" bring up plenty of results, but more to the point it's a fairly common journalistic practice to use President Foo for the first mention and Mr. Foo for subsequent mentions. (Non-presidents usually get Mr. Foo and then just Foo.) Here's an NPR story from the Obama administration about it: https://www.npr.org/sections/publiceditor/2011/10/12/141293477/why-do-you-call-him-mr-obama https://www.npr.org/sections/publiceditor/2011/10/12/1412934...
- foldr 7y ago
  >Or is it just common NY Times style Yes. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/08/reader-center/why-does-nyt-call-president-mr-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/08/reader-center/why-does-ny...
- fouc 7y ago
  I did a quick google search and came across: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/no-disrespect-in-calling-the-president-mister/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/no-disrespect-in-calling-the-pr... Which uses the example of Mr. Obama interestingly
- msoad 7y ago
  It's your assumption which I find out to be wrong. Use Google to search your hypothesis before making a statement: https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&ei=t73uXOCZD5fN-gSPg6z4DQ&q=site%3Anytimes.com+%22Mr.+Obama%22+date%3A2015&oq=site%3Anytimes.com+%22Mr.+Obama%22+date%3A2015 https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&ei=t73uXOCZD5fN-...
afpx 7y ago
So bizarre. The US defense department even says that climate change is one of the largest threats to US security. So, basically the Trump administration is pure politics.
- shivo 7y ago
  The power of lobbying dollars is insurmountable. Even for wealthy ivy league politicians.
- basementcat 7y ago
  Not bizarre at all. The Administration is just carrying out the wishes of the electorate (who carefully considered the qualifications of all the candidates in the year prior to the election before deciding that the current executive is the most qualified person for the job). Any USA DoD personnel who aren’t carrying out the wishes of the electorate are part of the "deep state" that many Americans believe are undermining the country.
  - munk-a 7y ago
    The US election system is based off a binary choice, many people who ended up voting for Trump did so for some of his stated positions without regard to the others. As such being elected to president isn't any sort of endorsement of all their policy positions.
  - dmode 7y ago
    The electorate chose a candidate with 3million more votes. Unfortunately an archaic system gave us this incompetent fool
    - eclipseo76 7y ago
      No. If the system had been different, the candidates would have adopted a different strategy and you can't predict the outcome. The current system doesn't incentivize republicans from California to go vote like it doesn't for democrats from Alabama.
    - 7y ago
danielovichdk 7y ago
To me, climate change is not such a big deal in terms of the human species. My belief is that we will eventually feel the impact from the earth, made by ourselves. So it's beyond climate change. We have fucked the earth up to a starte where we can't go back. But. The earth has a tendency to regulate itself and take care of itself. It will wipe out humanity if it needs to and then time will continue. We are not so smart as we believe, and out arrogance will be a deadly.
- xtreme 7y ago
  > But. The earth has a tendency to regulate itself and take care of itself. It will wipe out humanity if it needs to and then time will continue. There is no evidence that the Earth is sentient and assigning needs and wants to it is fallacious. Geological records show that the Earth has gone through several eras where life flourished followed by major extinction events. If we want to achieve long term stability for the human civilization, we need to achieve the power to control the climate and transform landscapes. Of course, we need to do it judiciously; but not developing such capabilities is shooting ourselves in the foot in the long run.
- 1PlayerOne 7y ago
  Civilization as we have known it is at risk. I guess some people are either too ignorant to understand or are not invested enough in their progenies futures. Either way, fun times ahead.
dmode 7y ago
Trump is a 80 year old moron, who will die in a few years. He has never cared for anyone else is life and has no incentive to do so at this age. Us younger folks will be left to undo the damage of this guy. Good thing is that without a Congressional mandate, most of the stuff he has done can be quickly reversed.
- ibejoeb 7y ago
  Way to thoughtfully articulate your point and make a compelling argument for it.
  - defterGoose 7y ago
    I think i can pinpoint the source of OP's frustration, though. From a younger person's perspective, is Trump not an 80yo moron who's had life handed to him on a silver platter? Why would he have any motivation to try to fix long term problems which require dedication to an ideal, lots of hard work and sacrifice, and a big dose of humble? Oh, future generations and a humane disposition? Nah, he'll take the money, thanks.
fuddle 7y ago
The Daily podcast covered this story aswell today - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/29/podcasts/the-daily/trump-climate-science.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/29/podcasts/the-daily/trump-...
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

96 points by whack 7y ago

This is an opinion piece with a red hot flamebait title and a buried lede. Surely there's a better way to start this conversation on HN.

mal10c 7y ago
Agreed!
babygoat 7y ago
There are an awful lot of hard facts presented. What parts specifically do you take issue with?
- microcolonel 7y ago
  The first six paragraphs of personal gripes, opinions, and hyperbole, for a start. If the story started and ended with hard facts, interpretation, and interview, it would be less painful to read and more effective in conveying the point. The way it's written, I'd be surprised if a healthy 20% of readers would reach the actual news: that the horizon for the government's first-party predictions of climate change is being shortened to about twenty years rather than about eighty. That would be something specific that you could make up your own mind about, instead of adopting the tedious framing, and something you could take up with your representatives and your community.
RobertRoberts 7y ago
Anyone who is voting down this comment should checkout the article. Any journalist that calls the President of the US "Mr." instead of "President" is trying to belittle them. If they writer showed respect and stuck to facts instead of baiting, then it would be more impactful to thoughtful and intelligent people. Since that is not how it is written, it comes across as an appeal to emotion.
- mattnewton 7y ago
  This is just common NYT style. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/08/reader-center/why-does-nyt-call-president-mr-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/08/reader-center/why-does-ny... It’s common elsewhere too. Here is a cbs news article talking about the style (using Mr. Obama in this case). https://www.cbsnews.com/news/no-disrespect-in-calling-the-president-mister/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/no-disrespect-in-calling-the-pr... Discrediting the article’s tone is easier than attacking its conclusions, but that’s not how we have a productive discussion, and I hope we can agree it’s not useful.
  - RobertRoberts 7y ago
    If my point was to discredit it's conclusions, I would have. I pointed out that the article was appealing to baser instincts by it's writing methods. Everyone who think's I support Trump (I don't) or think climate change is hoax (I don't) assumed this. Nothing in my comment indicates this. Maybe people downvote based on emotions as well?
- foldr 7y ago
  https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/08/reader-center/why-does-nyt-call-president-mr-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/08/reader-center/why-does-ny...
- danans 7y ago
  The Nytimes refers to nearly all people using personal, not professional, titles when their professional title is obvious from context or already previously stated in the article.
- microcolonel 7y ago
  The "Mr." stuff is just a quirk of the NY Times' opinionated editorial style; they also forego the Oxford comma despite that being a perpetual source of confusion.
- mikeash 7y ago
  Brought to you by the “fuck your feelings” crowd. “Political correctness is out of control” but how dare you follow your standard and refer to our God Emperor as a mere “Mr”!
Retra 7y ago
But what conversation is your comment meant to start?

cowwithbeef 7y ago

It would be a much more accurate article if instead of "climate science" it said "climate change prediction and mitigation."

jedberg 7y ago

The biggest issue we're going to have is that at some point someone else will be in charge, and the science will resume, but there will be a big hole in the data, because this current administration is no longer funding the collection of critical data for climate models. We won't even really feel the effects of this for probably a decade or more, when the models finally see the effects of the lack of data.

SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
Who is not collecting data?
- jedberg 7y ago
  Budgets are being slashed across the admin, but NOAA is prime example. They've said multiple times they can no longer meet all of their priorities because of the lack of budget. It came to head during the government shutdown, when they simply stopped doing any work for a month.
- evo_9 7y ago
  Godless untrustworthy liberals, duh.
  - steve76 7y ago
    More like people in charge have been coming after me my whole life, and now they are up to this. It's a mute issue until China and India do something about it. They don't, not because of centuries of social injustice. More like the corrupt reality of this second. The gasoline stops coming from the naive leaders, the naive leaders go bye bye. Funny how the talk of global warming goes away when we talk about dumping trillions of QE in the wallets of people in charge. There are ways to get conservatives aboard. Naval treaties, leadership, mutual realignment. They're not done because this isn't about solving problems. I see it as a way to explain why all this money is going to research, without alarming people of something good on the horizon, which in many ways is more destructive than ominous threat.
7y ago

yathern 7y ago

This is mostly unrelated to the point of the article, but I noticed that Trump in this article is repeatedly referred to as "Mr. Trump". Only once as "President Trump." This seems a little bit out of the ordinary to me. I can't recall Obama ever being called "Mr. Obama". This isn't a criticism at all - but simply piqued my curiosity. Is there a reason for this? My only assumption is it's meant to be a minor indicator of the author's sentiment regarding Trump. Or is it just common NY Times style? EDIT: It appears it's simply a well document common style decision. I should have looked it up before posting!

kej 7y ago
Searches for "Mr. Obama" bring up plenty of results, but more to the point it's a fairly common journalistic practice to use President Foo for the first mention and Mr. Foo for subsequent mentions. (Non-presidents usually get Mr. Foo and then just Foo.) Here's an NPR story from the Obama administration about it: https://www.npr.org/sections/publiceditor/2011/10/12/141293477/why-do-you-call-him-mr-obama https://www.npr.org/sections/publiceditor/2011/10/12/1412934...
foldr 7y ago
>Or is it just common NY Times style Yes. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/08/reader-center/why-does-nyt-call-president-mr-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/08/reader-center/why-does-ny...
fouc 7y ago
I did a quick google search and came across: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/no-disrespect-in-calling-the-president-mister/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/no-disrespect-in-calling-the-pr... Which uses the example of Mr. Obama interestingly
msoad 7y ago
It's your assumption which I find out to be wrong. Use Google to search your hypothesis before making a statement: https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&ei=t73uXOCZD5fN-gSPg6z4DQ&q=site%3Anytimes.com+%22Mr.+Obama%22+date%3A2015&oq=site%3Anytimes.com+%22Mr.+Obama%22+date%3A2015 https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&ei=t73uXOCZD5fN-...

afpx 7y ago

So bizarre. The US defense department even says that climate change is one of the largest threats to US security. So, basically the Trump administration is pure politics.

shivo 7y ago
The power of lobbying dollars is insurmountable. Even for wealthy ivy league politicians.
basementcat 7y ago
Not bizarre at all. The Administration is just carrying out the wishes of the electorate (who carefully considered the qualifications of all the candidates in the year prior to the election before deciding that the current executive is the most qualified person for the job). Any USA DoD personnel who aren’t carrying out the wishes of the electorate are part of the "deep state" that many Americans believe are undermining the country.
- munk-a 7y ago
  The US election system is based off a binary choice, many people who ended up voting for Trump did so for some of his stated positions without regard to the others. As such being elected to president isn't any sort of endorsement of all their policy positions.
- dmode 7y ago
  The electorate chose a candidate with 3million more votes. Unfortunately an archaic system gave us this incompetent fool
  - eclipseo76 7y ago
    No. If the system had been different, the candidates would have adopted a different strategy and you can't predict the outcome. The current system doesn't incentivize republicans from California to go vote like it doesn't for democrats from Alabama.
  - 7y ago

danielovichdk 7y ago

To me, climate change is not such a big deal in terms of the human species. My belief is that we will eventually feel the impact from the earth, made by ourselves. So it's beyond climate change. We have fucked the earth up to a starte where we can't go back. But. The earth has a tendency to regulate itself and take care of itself. It will wipe out humanity if it needs to and then time will continue. We are not so smart as we believe, and out arrogance will be a deadly.

xtreme 7y ago
> But. The earth has a tendency to regulate itself and take care of itself. It will wipe out humanity if it needs to and then time will continue. There is no evidence that the Earth is sentient and assigning needs and wants to it is fallacious. Geological records show that the Earth has gone through several eras where life flourished followed by major extinction events. If we want to achieve long term stability for the human civilization, we need to achieve the power to control the climate and transform landscapes. Of course, we need to do it judiciously; but not developing such capabilities is shooting ourselves in the foot in the long run.
1PlayerOne 7y ago
Civilization as we have known it is at risk. I guess some people are either too ignorant to understand or are not invested enough in their progenies futures. Either way, fun times ahead.

dmode 7y ago

Trump is a 80 year old moron, who will die in a few years. He has never cared for anyone else is life and has no incentive to do so at this age. Us younger folks will be left to undo the damage of this guy. Good thing is that without a Congressional mandate, most of the stuff he has done can be quickly reversed.

ibejoeb 7y ago
Way to thoughtfully articulate your point and make a compelling argument for it.
- defterGoose 7y ago
  I think i can pinpoint the source of OP's frustration, though. From a younger person's perspective, is Trump not an 80yo moron who's had life handed to him on a silver platter? Why would he have any motivation to try to fix long term problems which require dedication to an ideal, lots of hard work and sacrifice, and a big dose of humble? Oh, future generations and a humane disposition? Nah, he'll take the money, thanks.

fuddle 7y ago

The Daily podcast covered this story aswell today - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/29/podcasts/the-daily/trump-climate-science.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/29/podcasts/the-daily/trump-...

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]